We have a bumper batch of your letters – and

WHO CARES!
We have a bumper batch of your
letters – and photos – this issue, all
on the subject of my favourite
magazine’s 30th birthday, so let’s
get straight into them...
_______________________________
I first fell in love with Doctor Who when
I was eleven – not via the programme
on the telly, because that had that
frightening Tom Baker on it with his
goggle eyes, but with the printed word.
The Target novelisations, the Making of
Doctor Who, and those long lists of
cast lists and series codes in the JeanMarc Lofficier Programme Guide.
So it’s wholly appropriate that I
saved my real passion for the show for
the magazine. There it was, reserved for
me every month by the newsagent that
was closest to the coach stop that took
me to my school – I’d pop in there every
day just to see whether a new issue
had come in early, just in case. And it’s
absolutely true that some of my most
nostalgic moments from my childhood
are not settling down to watch the latest adventure on TV, but those mornings
when that long suffering shopkeeper
was able to hand over to me the latest
Doctor Who Monthly. I’d take it and
devour it on the coach to school, and it
suddenly wouldn’t matter to me if I had
a maths test or double woodwork, I was
able to bask in a magazine which told
secrets – tales of stories broadcast long
before I was born, of Doctors that I’d
been too young to watch.
It wasn’t your typical comic. Most of
it was text, for a start – and not lists of
facts, or story synopses, but articles
genuinely discussing the series and how
over the years it had evolved. I honestly
believe that it was not in my English
classes that I learned how to approach
studying literature, but via Jeremy
Bentham’s thoughtful appraisals of how
the Hinchcliffe years differed, say, from
the Williams. It was a mag which wasn’t
afraid to pitch above my eleven year old
head – and I loved it, because it not only
made me feel that the series I was falling
for was worth taking seriously, but that I
was worth taking seriously too.
And the first comic strip I read? It
was “The Tides of Time”. Nothing silly.
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Nothing easy. But a challenging epic of
great imagination, the likes of which
could only be achieved in the strip format, and only by a magazine that had
utter confidence in itself and the series
that inspired it.
When Doctor Who was cancelled
in 1989, and as a university student
studying my English Lit degree (yes,
thank you, Mr Bentham) I felt I’d outgrown the show, I still never outgrew
the magazine – which filled those wilderness years with clever and challenging articles not only about Doctor
Who, but about the fandom that
wouldn’t let it go. And the first time I
ever felt truly proud that I was a writer
for the revived TV series was when I
saw my name in Gallifrey Guardian, and
when the mag thought I was worthy
enough to be interviewed. My eleven
year old self would have boggled at the
thought I’d have an onscreen TV credit
for a Doctor Who story – but I know
full well what would have really excited
him was that I was inside that magazine he so much loved.
Robert Shearman,
TV, Big Finish and
short story Writer.
_______________________________
What an eager consumer of Doctor
Who Weekly I was! I bought three copies of every issue. One to keep, obviously. A second to cut up, in those
long-gone years when every new photo
was a prized rarity to be stuck into my
scrapbooks. And a third to cut up too,
because sometimes pictures were
(shriek!) printed back-to-back on the
same page. Three issues at 12p each?
Why, that’s over seven shillings in old
money. Yes, I really am that old. After
less than a year, I was shelling out a
monthly 90p for a trio of Doctor Who
Monthly magazines.
No self-respecting Doctor Who fan
throws stuff away. That meant I kept
lots of shredded remains of the magazines, mostly text and comic strips.
Dave Gibbons’ artwork in those early
strips brilliantly captured the Fourth
Doctor’s manic enthusiasm – right from
the “The Iron Legion” in the first issue
(script by Pat Mills and John Wagner),
but even more memorably in his later
work with Steve Moore.
I especially loved Sharon, the smart
young girl that befriended Beep the
Meep, but who by the end of “The Time
Witch” had unexpectedly blossomed
into a buxom young woman in the
space of a few frames. She was also
the Doctor’s first black companion,
something the TV series wouldn’t manage for another quarter century.
My favourite strip was the slinthtastic “Dreamers of Death”. In part,
that’s because of the irresistibly silly
were a very few fanzines around. The
weekly changed all that – suddenly
Doctor Who was out there! Everyone
could read about it.
I do recall the disappointment when,
very briefly, Doctor Who Weekly
became a kiddie magazine, which
spoke down to its readership. Then a
concern when it became Doctor Who
Monthly. Wouldn’t waiting four weeks
for the next issue be a trial?
I needn’t have worried. DWM went
from strength to strength. Now it’s a
highly-regarded, beautifully designed
glossy, the perfect accompaniment to a
slick, top-rated TV show.
Happy 30th!
David Richardson,
Big Finish Producer.
idea of the Doctor being stalked by a
toweringly huge devil-headed monster
constructed from thousands of psychic
lemmings, and defeating it with a hosepipe. But also because of a serendipitous discovery in that pile of magazine
clippings.
My friend Andrew Martin and I
spoofed the TV series in the fanzine
Frontier Worlds, creating a new story
from those shredded remains. We
found one half-frame of Sharon’s face
overlaid on another of the devil-headed
monster, so that it appeared to be
peeping out of her head. We hooted
with laughter: “It looks like her brain.”
The idea of clever, faithful Sharon having an unspoken, evil inner mind
appealed to us greatly. And so we
incorporated it into our spoof. It still
makes me grin to see it. And it’s with
that kind of affection that I remember
those early comic strips.
Peter Anghelides,
Novelist and Big Finish Writer.
Peter Angelides.
________Reader
________
_______________
Dear Doctor Who Magazine,
I still remember the excitement of
that day when I saw you on the shelves
of my local newsagent for the first time.
Tom Baker and a Dalek on the cover;
free stickers inside. This was back in
the days when there was no Internet, no
videos, no DVDs... You got one chance
to see an episode on TV, and that was
your lot. If you wanted to read articles
or look at photos from the show, there
_______________________________
October 1979: Doctor Who Weekly
Issue 1 is released. I remember vividly
the moment I first saw it in my local
newsagents. A magazine devoted
entirely to Doctor Who! I flicked
through the pages in the shop with
awe before handing over 12 new pence
and rushing home to read it. Later that
evening, I went back and bought two
more copies – one to bag and keep for
posterity and one in which I could carefully place the transfers.
1982: My name is printed in the mag
for the first time after I send Jeremy
Bentham a copy of Power Man and
Iron Fist which features a character
who has clearly been inspired by the
Doctor. I walk around with a huge grin
on my face for days.
1996: I visit the DWM offices in
Arundel House for the first time at the
invitation of Editor Gary Gillatt. He
show me photos from the forthcoming
TV Movie and also colour shots from
“The War Games” that have recently
been discovered. Fanboy heaven!
1999: Alan Barnes, an old friend who
has become Assistant Editor on DWM,
asks me if I’d like to take part in a new
regular column for the mag called “The
Time Team”. I’ve already contributed an
article or two, and am very busy both as
a new dad and with work. It takes me
less than a second to say “yes!”.
2007: I get chatting to Tom Spilsbury
over a meal the night that “Blink” goes
out. Tom, I learn, is set to become the
Editor of DWM. “I’ll be your assistant!”
I offer. And remarkably, after much
research, some sage advice from
former DWM Editors and a formal
interview, I find myself working on the
best magazine in the world.
2009: Working hard on Issue 415 –
our “Waters of Mars” preview issue –
and trying to decide how we’re going to
use the new logo on the cover of the
mag next year. DWM 414 arrives at the
office – and, for me, the thrill of having
a new issue is still as great as it was
30 years ago...
Peter Ware,
Assistant Editor of
Doctor Who Magazine.
_______________________________
My enduring memory of Doctor Who
Magazine is of the 1983 Winter Special,
out during that golden time when John
Nathan-Turner was plastering the neon
logo over everything and you couldn’t
move for cookery or quiz books. I was a
proto-fan, sat in front of the show by my
mother to get me excited by all the
colours and shapes in order to tire me
out for bed time, and was now loving
the opportunity to buy everything to
find out more and more about The
Doctor’s adventures. At the forefront
was Doctor Who Magazine where
each issue shone light into other times
with pictures of big butterflies and old
men; I think I’d long gotten used to
there being a “past” with Who – it just
didn’t look as WOW! as all the new
pictures of Kamelion, Anthony Ainley
and the new control room that were
coming. Funny when you look back.
I loved the drip-feed information
and the comic strip – ah! The comic
strip! “The Tides of Time” showed
Gallifrey with giant space towers and
ships and TARDIS Bays; I was terribly
disappointed when we saw Gallifrey on
screen the following year and it had
rag-rolled corridors and MFI water-features piddling away as people shuffled
past. It wasn’t as brilliant as the glorious Dave Gibbons had lead me to
believe. I felt a bit cheated after that.
The reason why the 1983 Winter
Special sticks in my mind so much was
the inside back page – not the news of
Colin Baker was taking over which I
only now realise was A Big Thing – the
other side, there was a fabulously
exciting strip about a man on a spacebike with his two robot companions and
it looked like it was part of the
magazine’s comic strip. It looked like it
was as exciting as any other strip in the
mag. I mean it had two really cool
robots were spraying WD-40 over a
seized-up Martian rover in order to
release the wheels to move it to safety!
The whole thing was colourful and
bright and very, very exciting.
And it clearly worked on me: “Mom,
can I have some lubricant?” I asked her
in all innocence.
She just told me to be quiet and
watch Tomorrow’s World.
Lee Binding,
Graphic Designer.
_______________________________
In the first copy of Doctor Who Monthly
I ever bought, a letter asked if there
was anywhere that fans could meet up.
Jeremy Bentham, in his role as Lord
High Galactic Fount of All Knowledge,
replied that fans met every first
Thursday of the month at The One Tun
pub in Farringdon. It was the first
Thursday of the month. The rest is history. Suddenly I discovered I was not
alone.
And inside those wondrous pages,
the comic strips opened up the budgetridden world of TV Doctor Who to new
cinematic vistas long before the novels
and Big Finish made locations boundless.
Everyone who read “The Tides of
Time” and “Stars Fell on Stockbridge”
remembers them with affection (or so
they should. They were truly epic and
wonderful!) And surely it’s time for
Shayde and Abslom Daak – Dalek Killer,
chainsword and all, to resurface in Big
Finish stories...
Marc Platt,
TV and Big Finish writer.
_______________________________
Dear Doctor Who Weekly,
When I first started working as an
assistant editor at Marvel, back in the –
gosh – eighties, I quickly discovered I
wanted to write. There were plenty of
titles to work on – great, fun comics like
Ghostbusters, Thundercats, Action
Force and Transformers – which needed a steady flow of stories to keep them
going and on which I, and many many
other British writers and artists of my
generation cut our teeth and learned our
craft on. But DWM was always the big
daddy of Marvel’s stable back then. It
was a more significant publication, and
a more significant license. It was the
most serious and the most cool, and it
had that pedigree, that legacy, both from
the TV source and the quality of the
material that had been produced for it.
You had to be invited to write the strip.
It was Doctor Who, for god’s sake.
When I got my first invite (to write a
story that the great John Ridgway drew)
I was unbelievably excited. I still remember it was one of those moments. A
huge honour. A big deal. It felt, back then
and now, like a proper landmark.
I went on to write a bunch of stories,
most of them Seventh Doctor, most of
them with John or Lee Sullivan. By the
end of my editorial tenure at Marvel,
before I jumped overboard for a freelance life, I was working in the magazine
department in an office adjoining the
DWM office, so I saw its daily life, met
many of its contributors, became good
friends with John Freeman, proofed
copy once in a while, got my opinion
asked on covers... One of the regulars I
met back then was Gary Russell, who
retained such a fond memory of one of
my stories with John Ridgway (I think it
was called “Cuckoo”) that years later he
reopened the TARDIS door for me to
write for Big Finish, and then for the
Beeb’s first Torchwood novels.
I suppose what I wanted to say was,
I really appreciated that invite.
Yours,
Dan Abnett,
Writer of comic strips,
Big Finish plays and novels.
thought I could get away with. I’d lie for
ages gazing at the skirting board with
its freshly applied layer of lizard men,
imagining alien battle scenes. Thirty
years later I think my mother is still trying to scrape them off.
Best of all, was the comic strip.
Until then the only comic I read was the
Beano so the idea of stories that carried
on from week to week – and which had
a cliffhanger at the end rather than a
punchline – was completely new to me.
It was like having a real Doctor Who
serial I could enjoy any time I liked!
(and yes, I did love my Target novels but
they didn’t have so many pictures).
Those first six weeks with Doctor
Who Weekly were bliss but then, unexpectedly, my local newsagent stopped
stocking it. I couldn’t find it anywhere
else in my small town. I wondered what
had happened – had the Doctor stopped
writing it? Wasn’t everyone in the world
as obsessed with Doctor Who as I
was? My seven-year-old self had no
way of knowing so I settled for reading
and re-reading those first six issues
until the paper crumbled.
As time went on I occasionally saw
DWW (and later DWM) in other shops
but I never had a regular supply and
that made it very difficult to follow the
comic strips. All I got were disjointed
chunks of adventures with Sontarans,
Cybermen and Slinth. I still don’t know
what happened to the Slinth. Luckily,
some time around 1982 I realised what
the word “subscription” meant and
after that I never looked back.
Through Doctor Who Weekly I discovered a world of amazing new stuff
about my favourite programme, like the
fact that there had been four Doctor
Whos (not two as I thought). And that Jon
Pertwee’s stories were made in colour,
it’s was just our TV that was black and
white. DWW also led to me discovering
Alan Moore, 2000AD, American Marvel
imports, graphic novels and hundreds of
hours of multi-panel fun.
DWM and I have grown up together.
It’s been my constant friend through
puberty, reckless youth and now comfortable maturity. I confidently expect
we’ll still be together when I’m in my
dotage and relationships like that are
rare and precious things. So I’ll be raising a glass to DWM on this anniversary
because I know it’s our anniversary.
Lisa Gledhill,
Trailer writer for Doctor Who and
The Sarah Jane Adventures
Reader Lisa Gledhill, aged 7,
catches sight of the Iron Legion!
________
_______________________
As a late starter to DWM (I was more of
a Transformers fan) I was eventually
dragged kicking and screaming into the
world of Doctor Who thanks to the
1994 Summer Special that featured two
legendary stories starring both the First
and Seventh Doctors – “An Unearthly
Child” and “Survival”.
It was with this very magazine –
purchased to read on a long trip abroad
– that I fell in love with Doctor Who
again and the intervening years have
seen a superb collection of articles act
as succour to my increasingly fervent
appetite for news and knowledge.
The internet has immediacy, but
Doctor Who Magazine has intimacy
which is very difficult to achieve in any
medium. Opening each issue grants the
reader access to ‘open club’ that brings
legends of the series back to life, investigates new episodes, books and DVDs
and of course presents the now legendary DWM comic strip.
Over the years I’ve read various
interviews with Tom Baker (the latest
_______________________________
I’d just turned seven when I saw the
first issue of Doctor Who Weekly in my
local newsagent and it was like finding
buried treasure. An actual letter from
the Doctor! Daleks! And transfers!
Those transfers ended up on cupboards,
book-cases, walls and anywhere else I
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